Any web-designers on here?

[naturally anabolic]

use colors you like that are complementary to each other and do not hurt the readers eyes, soft or dark blues (not teal or anything like that) and grays and black are generally best for easy reading, less distracting and easy on the eyes....

 

[MrMuscle]

what im owrking on now is like the front page...the core of the whole site is gonna be a norwegian trining board. so thi is just like a welcome thing and with links to the forum, and im gonna put up some basic trainng info from my old page.

 

[naturally anabolic]

sounds like a good idea... you vikings and your fitness...

 

[Warik]

MrMuscle.org? Damn... when did Norway start having access to domain registration? Didn't you guys get access to the Internet just last month? (hehehe )

-Warik

 

[the People's Champ]

yeah this guy. so umm, where is the cracked out s/w?

 

[visions]

alright dude ya start with your psd and thats how you develop from the ground up. Fuck all that online virtual shit, a good book can be a valuable source for reference if you can not figure out how to do something. Designing is just like anything else it takes time and dedication to succeed, there is no shortcut and comparable to genetics you either have it or you don't. But you can improve regardless of what your skills are. The best thing you can do to improve your skills is to look at other sites and try to emulate the graphics on your own, this will help you become familiar with photoshop and learn new techniques that will help you develop your own style. Focus on what some of the other sites that you enjoy are doing such as color scheme, navigation, content organization etc. This shit takes serious time and patience so just stick with it, and take one step at a time learning and improving new skills. Good luck, here are a couple of the sites I have designed of late. They might help give you some guidelines to a clean effective design.

http://www.productivit.com
http://www.healthyconnect.com
http://www.patsrestaurant.com/temp.htm
http://www.visionsofmind.com/vip/v1.htm

 

[Big Jroy]

If you still have questions feel free to e-mail me @ [email protected], I'll hook you up.

Here is two of my works

http://www.extreme-athlete.com
http://www.nutrition-factor.com

 

[dballer]

off the subject for a second.. but what the hell is coalfish?? and do you think this could be linked to your current sex life???

 

[Taps]

Whenever I've had to design a webpage, I always do a sketch of what I want it to look like. Do that first, and then just stick the damn thing together by hand...or use whatever program you want.

 

[J-DAM]

For the love of all that is holy, don't use any freaking java applets. I want to kick those damn things in the neck.. damn they suck.

As far as design goes.. just keep it simple. No wack ass glows or super drop shadows. No corny animated gifs. No ugly flash elements. Just do what you can, and don't place things on your site just for the sake of having them on there. Everything on your site needs to have a purpose.. if an element doesn't mesh with the big picture, axe it, cause no one wants to see it.

As far as colors go, check out the color schemes of professional sports teams. They pay color specialists big bucks to research complimentary colors. I need to get that job, by the way.

Make sure when you save photos, don't resave your jpgs over and over again.. it'll degrade the quality every time. Keep a master psd and save off of that.

Buy an art/design magazine and check out the newest trends. Alot of the times you can pick up a small element that will really make your site stand out.

Use your background element creatively, but please don't use an ugly ass tiled pattern. Those are so 1998.

Just have fun with it. Experiment with all the features in Photoshop.. its your most important ally. I've been a graphic designer since I was 15, but I didn't know jack crap about how to design websites until I got my first job to produce one. But since then, I've made my living off of site design.. working for companies like the NFL and Snowball, and designing sites for lots of people in the fitness industry. So just take your time and be open to new things.. who knows where it'll lead you.

Just don't try stealing any jobs from me if you end up being some design savant or something.